


Nothing in Space but Air

by tosca1390



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 21:10:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She never dreamed of space.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing in Space but Air

**Author's Note:**

> For the Intergalactic Women's Day Fic Challenge at . My challenge: Winona Kirk, with prompt #41: 
> 
> _You think that luck has left you there_  
>  But maybe there's nothing up in the sky but air  
> And there's no mystical design  
> No cosmic lover preassigned  
> There's nothing you can find  
> That cannot be found 

*

Winona never looked for answers in the stars. 

She liked earth and dirt and sand between her toes, flowers and fungus and sentient plant life, strong and supple underneath her fingertips. On the few times she went off-planet with her father, she hid in the botany labs, took tutelage from kind science officers, and stayed away from viewports and observation decks. She dreamed of her own lab and going to college, fostering new alien floras and becoming the top woman for plant life. She never dreamed of space. 

Enrollment in Starfleet was after pushing from her Admiral father (mother long gone at that point, she could never keep up with Winona and her father, and left them to themselves when Winona was twelve). After college, Starfleet was her next stop, and she’d never regret it, because it brought her George Kirk. 

George, who sat next to her in the introductory Xenolinguistics class that _everyone_ had to take, who always had a cup of real coffee and gluten-free cookies (he was allergic, bizarrely), and took his notes on a combination of real paper and his padd. They were put in the same group for presentations, and soon after their stumbling and slightly hilarious presentation on Klingon, he’d asked her out for coffee, and then dinner, and then he was just _there_ , like he’d always been there in her life. He had hundreds of real books, couldn’t cook worth a damn, was whip-smart without lifting a finger, but just about as modest as you could find. 

She hadn’t dated much at all, had very few boyfriends, but even she knew that George Kirk was all hers. 

*

George loved stars. 

He would take her out into the quad at night, on clear cool San Francisco evenings, lay her down and sketch out stars and constellations and travel paths to different worlds with her fingertips, his skin always warm on hers. He was like a space heater, warming her right to the bone no matter what. Relentlessly, he tried to explain the magnetism of space, the pull of the stars, like something out of a fairy tale, and she could never grasp it. She would always sink into the grass and just listen to his voice, soothing and low and bright. 

She didn’t believe in tales and stories; she believed in science and logic (the biggest tease thrown her way in her younger years was acting like a Vulcan, but she’d never minded), and yet, she couldn’t explain George Kirk, his insistence, his fierce affection, all wrapped in a hyper-intellectual package. After a while, she stopped trying. 

But, for all his stars-and-space rambling, for all the romantic dates outside and finding constellation patterns in the freckles of her arms, no matter what George said or did, space remained unattractive to her. She didn’t want to be there more than she had to. It wasn’t flying she was scared of, it was just… space. The emptiness, the nothingness. 

When George got starry-eyed, telling her of his plans, of the ships he wanted to command, the planets he wanted to go to, she couldn’t help those frissons of cold, of fear. 

“What are you looking for up there?” she asked once, lounging on the grass, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. Her gaze fixed on the pulse in his neck, fully grounded. 

“Don’t know,” he said after a long moment, his fingers curling through her blonde hair, tingling in her scalp. “But I’ll find it.”

*

With all the planets to explore and the new races and species to overwhelm, alien flora and plant life wasn’t a hot topic, and there were only so many fellowships and research grants to be had. Winona was near the top of her class, working day and night to keep it that way (she’d always been that way, skipping two grades and sacrificing _real life_ for schoolwork, in the name of keeping up), but it was still a man’s world and even plant life was man’s domain, and she was still too young to lead her own team. 

George, of course, was on the fast track to his own command post, with his grades and smarts and tactical energy just pouring out in spades. Sometimes, she resented him for it. 

“They gave the Laurentian fellowship to Marcus Jones,” she muttered to him in bed one night close to the end of fall term of their last year, San Francisco cold and damp and thickly foggy around them. “It was the last good one. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Serve on a ‘Fleet ship for five years, research will have caught up by then,” he murmured, his long fingers trailing over her ribs, voice warm at her ear. “When we find more planets, you’ll have more opportunities.”

In the dark of his single room, she felt enveloped and safe. This kind of black, she enjoyed; no pinpricks of light, no restless vacuum. She didn’t crave the cold black of space as George did, didn’t see much in stars and suns; to her, there could be nothing in space but air. But George, George loved it, wanted it, itched for it, worked hard for his shot in space, and she did love that about him. 

“I don’t like space,” she said softly, staring into the inky dark, the air cold against her bare skin.

“It’ll give you a chance to go places,” he said, warm against her side. His mouth brushed along the curve of her jaw, sending shivers down her spine. “You’ll gain more from being up there than staying here.”

He wanted her to curl up to him, but she almost couldn’t bear it yet. “There’s still a research fellowship open on Vulcan.”

He sighed against her skin, fingers stilling on her stomach. “You hate hot weather.”

“And space,” she retorted.

“Winona, you know you should be on a ship,” he said, an edge of exasperation lacing his voice. “In five years, who knows where we’ll be, research-wise? And—well—“

She slipped her hand into his, fingers threading together. “And we could stay together,” she said quietly, goosebumps prickling across her skin, because this was _it_ , this was why he’d been so insistent on space and ships and stars for not only himself, but for her. 

He was quiet then, breathing soft and silent on her skin. His fingers tightened in hers. “Five years is a long time without you,” he said finally, his words so soft they were nearly lost in the thick dark of the room. “I don’t want to risk it.”

At twenty-three, with a degree in plant biology, four years of college and three years of Starfleet behind her, Winona had never had someone so dedicated to _her_. In that moment, in the black darkness of their Earth, she wasn’t sure if she could love him more. “What are you saying, George?” she asked after a moment. 

At that, he sat up, sheets sliding from his bare skin, pooling at his hips. His hair, usually so proper and slicked-up, was ruffled up on end. He’d have to cut it soon, in the fourth year of his command track, getting ready for assignment. “I’m saying that I want to marry you, and I want you on a ship with me, and I promise I’ll find you an amazing research post,” he said earnestly, clasping her hands, eyes piercing her so deeply it made her shudder. 

She sat up, bringing her sheet up with her, his hands warming hers. “You want to marry me?” she repeated, somewhat at sea. 

His mouth quirked into something like a smile, half-way there. “No, I was kidding,” he said dryly.

Shaking off his hands, she smacked his bare shoulder. “If you don’t mean it—“

“Of course I do,” he interjected fervently, eyes and teeth bright in the darkness. “I knew from day one, Winona. And I still know it now.”

At a loss, she leaned over and kissed him, arms linking around his neck, across his broad shoulders, because what could she say? A _yes_ meant space, and she didn’t know if she wanted that. But him, she wanted _him_ —how could he be so sure? To believe in fate and pre-assignment? She, so based in science and fact and solid-to-the-touch ground operations, couldn’t reach that far, not yet.

“Think about it,” he whispered into her mouth, against her chin, the dips of her collarbones, over her soft skin, as he stretched her back over the bed, his small twin bed they shared nearly every night. “Just think about it.”

Two months later, her father was gone, lost to a car accident, of all the things for an admiral to die from. George hacked into her room to console her despite her efforts to George-proof the lock on her door, and she finally said _yes_ to him through silent tears, because even if space was nothing but air, there was still George, plants be damned. And George was all she had now, except for earth and dirt and greenery. 

*

Years later, space took George from her, and she never forgave it for the offence. 

Sam and Jim, her two singular sons, grew up sharply disparate from each other, but both fragments of George. Sam had his eyes, his face, and Jim had his smarts and his spirit and the fire behind his eyes; both of them had that yen for space and for the stars. Sam at least had that scientist edge, but Jim was all stars and engines and speed and tactics, even in his rebellion. 

Winona forced herself back into space yearly, for that alien flora and that sentient life that George promised her. He’d been right in the end; with more planets opened up to the Federation, she had more research opportunities. It was almost cosmic, how it all fit together, just as George had said, except that George wasn’t _here_. Jim resented her, Sam was silent, and she couldn’t fit the pieces of their lives together, now without George. So, she went back into space to steal back what it stole from her. She knew what she was looking for, those lost pieces of George, and she knew it could be found.

In the end, it would take Jim and Spock and _twenty-five years later_ to get any of it back from that horrible place, space. 

But, twenty-five years later, watching Jim get thunderous applause with Sam tall and proud at her side, scars and still-fading bruises scattered over Jim’s face, in an off-kilter celebration amidst huge loss, she felt that pre-destination fit in. George echoed over and over in her mind, his _I knew from day one, and I still know_ , and she couldn’t help but wonder if this is what he meant. All her science and logic went away in the face of overwhelming accomplishment from Jim, and she imagined George looking down from above, from space, from wherever he was. 

He’d say that this is what he was looking for all along, she thought. She’d have to agree.

*


End file.
